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00:01houses are more than shelter the second we walked through the threshold of the
00:09door we both looked up looked at each other this is it yeah this is the space
00:15we wanted to live in the light and we wanted to live in the landscape for us
00:23it was a way to sort of connect my roots and expose our children and continue
00:28that legacy from our parents he sort of fell in love with the place and each
00:36other at the same time this building it's a real landmark around here it's an
00:43unconventional house but it's pretty fun the fact is that houses are dreams
00:50they're an expression of who we are and what we believe in
01:13waking up here it does bring a deep sense of peace and gratitude
01:20it was a long journey to build this place but it was worth it
01:28I think what's been the most rewarding thing about building this place is
01:33seeing other friends come here and they're kind of have that like city tension on them
01:37and just watching that fall away you know walk on the dune just getting down to the water
01:42getting in the ocean
01:54my name is Ben Moon I'm a photographer filmmaker writer dog lover I live here full-time with my dog
02:08Nori she was a street dog rescue and so she's lived in an entire nine years of her life
02:12out here at the coast there's something about the rugged beauty of Oregon that really is unlike
02:19anywhere else it's just raw Pacific City on the Oregon coast it's framed by wetlands and waterways
02:28there's something about the just the color palette even that really drew me here
02:42when I first found this lot it was just bare land it was kind of a scrappy partially cleared slope
02:50from the road it didn't look like much and then I climbed a tree and I was like I think
02:54maybe if I
02:54build the house kind of all oriented south that I'll have some views on the upper floors because
02:59of the slope I had to kind of build the house into the hillside so when you come up the
03:05steps there's
03:06this a little bit of compression and then as you walk in the front door you get the reveal to
03:10the ocean
03:17so this is the main living area as you first walk in these beams really pull you towards the view
03:25in the
03:25south facing windows lots of sunlight spills in here day beds built-in bookshelves a home theater system
03:35that's hidden in the projector tucks away just like the house integrated into the landscape I want
03:41all the tech can be integrated in and not be in your face tucks away but it's it's there flows
03:48into
03:48the kitchen area a lot of islands have seating at them but I wanted to orient the cooktop facing the
03:54living area because there's nothing worse than hosting and facing the wall the whole time and
03:59everybody's having fun and you're the one you know making food everything in this floor you know the
04:06tile this is kind of made for the coastal living I just wanted to be easy to clean up really
04:12durable
04:13there's a really wide space here so still gonna be cooking be behind but then there's still room to flow
04:18in between a lot of houses out here you see her because it really lasts in the weather there's a
04:24level of intention and thoughtfulness to the house I knew I wanted to have solar so I chose to do
04:30a
04:30pitched roof because I wanted to make sure I had a space for the panels to be to me sustainability
04:35is
04:36durability and also finding materials that are available locally you know there were a lot of
04:41materials that I explored using that would need to be freighted from Europe or trucks from the East Coast
04:47and to me then the sustainability is just negated at that point and so I think there's a lot more
04:53to
04:53sustainability than just a label you have to think about the full life of that product people say oh
05:01you built your own house but honestly it was many many people helped with this place then it was a
05:06collaboration like every good thing I've been around woodworks my entire life my dad built most of
05:13the houses we lived in he helped me so much the concrete structure my dad and I board formed it
05:20we
05:20actually used old cedar and we actually pinned it to the forms and so it like gave the imprint and
05:27I
05:27had a lot of friends that helped as well design all the way to move in date is probably about
05:32a five-year
05:33process that was a pretty special time actually I was living in my van as we were building we had
05:43between
05:44three and seven rigs out here sometimes you know just like full like surf camp and the common thread
05:49was we all were creative and surfed and it was very community feeling at one point my builder friend
05:55he was like do you have any friends that aren't creatives that are gonna show up at 7 a.m.
06:00every day and
06:01somehow we made it work you know oh we're here on second floor this is where we kind of go
06:14up into
06:15the more of the semi-private bedroom area this whole floor and upper floors all cork just want to have
06:23a
06:23really nice give to the feet when you first wake up in the morning this loft here I didn't really
06:28want
06:28to waste the space oftentimes you will have just an attic lofts feel like that extra space in a
06:33house made this little catwalk across to my studio yeah over the years I've you know had a separate
06:41workspace but it's usually been in a bedroom and so it feels like it's still part of your house it's
06:46too easy to get distracted by just daily tasks but if you have a removed space it's easier to focus
06:52it's a space to be creative you know have instruments out have everything you know just ready to sit down
06:57and play and it feels like it stimulates creativity being up here I feel like life has chapters and I
07:11feel like homes can also be that they need to be able to flow with you it really brings me
07:18a lot of joy
07:19joy to see the home we created and looking down the coastline it does bring a deep sense of peace
07:27and
07:27gratitude one thing that's very important to me is community and this place I built it to be a
07:35gathering place so we can help each other like grow and heal it really is where you find belonging
08:16most people that live here have no idea this exists we might be like very close to Seattle but it
08:23doesn't feel like that at all when we are here in Washington especially in Seattle area there's
08:28mountains there's water there's forests there's a lake we get all four seasons we're here all year
08:34round and you can completely lose yourself and forget that there's even a city around we live here with my
08:44husband Michael and our daughter and we'll be expecting our son here soon in a few weeks
08:52getting up here in the morning like never gets old yeah every single day is just beautiful
09:01this is a home in Seattle Washington it's a four bedroom three and a half bath 4,000 square feet
09:07it sits on a two-acre lot with about 150 feet of frontage to the lake you were kind of
09:14high yeah I
09:15kayaked by and the old owner had put a sign on the dock that's set for sale I didn't know
09:22I thought
09:22it was just forest here it just seemed too good to be true I am I make video games for
09:33work particular games
09:36that sort of foster creativity and that sort of thing like for seven years I worked on Minecraft and we
09:43actually design the house using the game the video game is a great design medium because it's meant
09:49for visualization a video game can turn a flat idea into 3d very quickly and very easily so we built
09:57all that played it until we were happy with it and then we took it to an architect on the
10:00laptop the
10:01first architect that didn't laugh us out of the room and asked him to play it can you can you
10:07build
10:07this yeah we drew a lot of our inspiration for the materials from Japanese and Scandinavian designs
10:18Michael is from Denmark originally the siding is a Japanese shishugi bond treatment where they take
10:24cedar and flame it to create a natural sealant to it so it doesn't have to be treated with chemicals
10:30the concrete is a board form treatment to get that really natural wood feel it's a very cold material
10:38but it still feels very warm because it has those wood features in it
10:56the first thing that you really see when you come into our home is is the lake we have almost
11:01180 degree
11:02view of the lake from from our home and we really wanted to incorporate as much of that view as
11:08possible
11:09so we designed our living area to be a very open floor plan with as many windows as possible and
11:16here in the
11:16living room this really is the center of our home it's where we do all of our daily living all
11:21of our
11:22friends our family our playtime Christmas happens here
11:28everywhere we are in this home there is a pocket where you can see a forest or there's a pocket
11:33where you can see the lake
11:37moving through the home to our kitchen one of the most shocking things to me about building the house is
11:42not having upper cupboards we don't have upper cabinets in our kitchen instead we chose to have these huge windows
11:48where we can look
11:49out over the lake while we're in here cooking and in our daily living we have a patio just out
11:55here where we often eat our meals in the
11:57summertime we didn't want the view to be impeded from the front door through the kitchen windows and vice
12:03versa so we found this fume hood that can raise and lower the major focus of the house is the
12:14view not the house
12:16necessarily itself so a lot of our design choices are centered around minimalism to allow the outside to
12:23be the most important part of our home we put these giant sliders and that can open completely up to
12:32one way or the other so we can choose if we want to be in our living room but still
12:37sitting outside or if
12:38we want to be in our kitchen and still experiencing the outside so the primary bedroom is above us here
12:46creating the shade for the outdoor living which allowed us to also get heaters so we can extend our season
12:51to
12:52spring and fall I think there are always details in the house that you end up obsessing over and for
13:02me it was absolutely the stairs I had seen these like like really amazing looking stairs in Japan that
13:09looked like they were just floating impossibly in thin air so I think stairs are I don't know they're
13:15just seen as utilitarian but they can be beautiful they can be part of the architecture of the house
13:20the stairs float like we really wanted it to be light while using these kind of heavy and destructible
13:27materials when you walk upstairs you're not walking up to an enclosed space you're walking up to still
13:35an open space where you can see we have our primary bedroom bathroom closet down this way and over here
13:44we have our what we call our kids wing we're expecting our son any day now and so we have
13:53transitioned this room into his nursery flowing down the kids wing we have our daughter's room and the
14:03playroom I call this room the treehouse from this room you have the illusion that you're floating above
14:12everything our kids are gonna grow up in the trees it's amazing we have the primary bedroom down this way
14:26so
14:29now we're in the primary bedroom in what we consider the best corner of the house we really do have
14:36like a
14:37180-degree view of the lake similarly to the playroom we have a floating feeling over the lake so we
14:44really
14:45are just like hovering
14:57I would encourage anyone to try to design their own house it's it's a very rewarding process like every every
15:03part of it you had a hymn in it so it is I would say like in no compromise house
15:09this is exactly what
15:11we wanted to build where we wanted to build it it's a place to gather it's a place to connect
15:16around
15:18feels like time left it alone a little bit every single day is just beautiful
15:48like Travis it's just a short walk away from the house and there's a beautiful private cove where I
15:53love to go swimming I've heard it said that we don't see the world as it is but as we
16:00are and I find that
16:02the more time I spend in nature the more I'm able to approach life with grace coming into this house
16:10it's like stepping into a dream everything I do is focused on creating something as simple as
16:18possible so that the details that you want can be really appreciated and felt so every detail like
16:25that is really important to me this is willow hi my friend found him on the side of the road
16:41in Dale
16:41Texas and he is the love of my life I am a farmer and an herbalist I split my time
16:52between northern New
16:54Mexico and Austin Texas I have a small ranch in northern New Mexico where I raise sheep rabbits and
17:01bees sit pretty and one of the things I love about being here is just getting to luxuriate in the
17:15slower
17:15pace of life and take a break dream house is two bedrooms the primary bedroom also has a sleeping loft
17:27there's two clawfoot tubs and we have one bathroom it's about 600 square feet but what's so special is
17:38that the property actually backs up to a wildlife preserve that is protected golden-cheeked warbler
17:45habitat and in central Texas there's no public land and so the fact that there is this nature preserve
17:52that can never be built on adjacent to the property is just incredible we are out near Lake Travis about
18:0230
18:03minutes from downtown Austin this cabin was built in 1975 before there was really anything out here
18:08because there were no utilities there was no water and so it was like really country living
18:18so coming up the path this is where I like to spend most of my time when I'm at the
18:23house whether I'm
18:24just enjoying a quiet morning out here or taking time to write or work on the deck and when you
18:30sit
18:30here you have a beautiful view of the lake so when I originally moved in there was just a normal
18:41solid
18:41door here and I really wanted to bring more light into the space so one of the ways I thought
18:45to do
18:45that was to add a door with a window but not just that I wanted it to be a Dutch
18:51door right when you walk
18:55in the front door you step into the kitchen so when I first moved in here there was no cabinets
19:05no storage
19:06whatsoever and the stove was actually a gas stove hooked up to propane which in retrospect is quite
19:12dangerous it was pretty rough when I moved in there was only marginal running water and I redid the electric
19:19I redid the plumbing I redid the siding I have zero renovation experience just pure vision and idealism
19:28the windows in the kitchen really informed a lot of the design there's different heights with the
19:33counters I try to repair wherever I can rather than replacing and you know it's like what you lose in
19:39efficiency you make up for in charm there was so much I wanted to preserve in the house there are
19:46things that this house was built with that don't exist anymore the walls inside are made of locally
19:52milled mesquite wood and when I've had different woodworkers come into the house they look at that
19:57and they're a little like perplexed because they're like wow how is there a mesquite board that wide
20:02because all of the mesquite trees of that age have been milled they don't exist anymore and so there's
20:08certain elements that you could never get back this is probably one of my favorite areas of the house I
20:19just love how you almost feel like you're in this little light box and we have this incredible built
20:24in daybed that I designed and had constructed what I love about this is that the entire thing is storage
20:32and so basically you open it up and there's drawers that go all the way back I had spent many
20:40many
20:41years living out of different travel vehicles like truck campers and RVs and so I had really learned the
20:46value of optimizing every bit of space and having things that are both functional and aesthetic as far
20:54as storage goes and so I applied all of that when I came to the cabin there's the concept of
21:03a visually
21:04quiet space where natural materials and natural elements that get better with time can really hold the
21:12design the kitchen leads into what I think is the most unique feature of the home which is the original
21:22limestone steps you can see the difference in this like raw limestone versus the limestone down here and
21:33this is all just like the patina of being walked on it's really beautiful to see how the interaction
21:39between humans and the natural materials transforms them over time so from here we can come on up into
21:49the bedroom we're using darker wood in here to match the walls and the floor a little bit more so
21:58incredibly peaceful in here I love the way that these windows are situated so that there's like full
22:05windows on each corner and then the same window but just turned on its side right here one of the
22:12really interesting features of the home is this loft because you're up in the canopy of the trees you get
22:20this incredible close-up look at the birds when you're up there at some point this window actually cracked
22:30and so we repaired it but then we just put this trim over it and I think it actually adds
22:34this like very
22:35cool element that wasn't here before and so there is that reality of an old house that's being loved and
22:41lived in that if you can come up with creative solutions when things are damaged it can actually
22:47increase the character learning to live with and embrace the beauty of you know maybe a scratched countertop
22:56or something just slightly out of place it shows that the space is actually being loved and lived in
23:09hi hi hi honey it's so good to see you
23:14who knew this is what I needed
23:19we're gonna use the Damiana cheers cheers this cabin just captured my imagination you really feel like
23:27you're in a fairy tale when you're here and that really spoke to me so I'm glad that I took
23:32on the
23:33project when people step into the space they might not be able to put their finger on it but they
23:39feel
23:39it and I think that good design makes you feel something there's nothing like getting in a body of
23:48natural water to refresh you I really think it is life-changing it's just I treasure this place
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